14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since the earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, which took place on March 11, 2011, the world has been warier of earthquakes in general. On the bright side, procedures for better dealing with these crises have been set in place as well.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company either had evacuation plans already well thought out, or made sure to revise them.
Whichever the case may be, it can pat itself on the back for a job well done, as the earthquake that hit Taiwan yesterday (March 28, 2013) affected two of its facilities but did not claim any lives or cause any injuries.
Then again, it bears noting that Taiwan is located on a seismically active stretch of the Pacific basin, meaning that quakes happen regularly there, like in September 1999, when a 7.6 quake claimed the lives of 2,400 people.
Compared to that, and the Tohoku disaster (9.03 magnitude), this one was relatively mild, at 6.3 (Reuters).
Still, it set off the alarms, so all workers quickly evacuated the premises of the semiconductor manufacturing facilities, like they would for any quake of 4 or higher.
The epicenter of the earthquake was adjacent central Taiwan at a depth of about 15 km (9 miles), or so Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau reported (Richter scale).
One of the fabs evacuated is located in Hsinchu (it is actually a surprise there was just one, as TSMC has a whole bunch of large facilities there) and the other is from Taichung (ElectronicsWeekly.com).
According to a TSMC spokesman, the workers returned to their posts shortly after the evacuations. Operations should not be affected.
Nevertheless, the company hasn't put together a report on damages. Even if the infrastructure came out fine, a quake of 6.3 is bound to have affected at least one or two wafer production lines or related equipment.